Justice Dept. Proposes Lying, Hiding Existence Of Records Under New FOIA Rule

The Daily Caller ^ | 10/24/2011 | C.J. Ciaramella

[Yosemitest]

Justice Dept. Proposes Lying, Hiding Existence Of Records Under New FOIA Rule
By C.J. Ciaramella
Archive | Email C.J. Ciaramella



A classified folder rests President Barack Obama’s desk during a morning meeting in the Oval Office, June 8, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

This official White House photograph is being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.



A proposed revision to Freedom of Information Act rules would allow federal agencies to lie to citizens and reporters seeking certain records, telling them the records don’t exist.

The Justice Department has proposed the change as part of a large revision of FOIA rules for federal agencies. Specifically, the rule would direct government agencies who are denying a request under an established FOIA exemption to “respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist,” rather than citing the relevant exemption.

The proposed rule has alarmed government transparency advocates across the political spectrum, who’ve called it “Orwellian” and say it will “twist” public access to government.

The draft FOIA revisions were first published in March, but the Justice Department re-opened comment submissions in September after several open-government groups raised objections. A Justice Department spokesperson said the agency is committed to public input and transparency, which is why it re-opened public comments on the rule — an unusual step in the process.

In a public comment regarding the rule change, the ACLU, along with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and OpenTheGovernment.org, said the move “will dramatically undermine government integrity by allowing a law designed to provide public access to government information to be twisted to permit federal law enforcement agencies to actively lie to the American people.”

Anne Weismann, the chief counsel of CREW, said the Justice Department has a legitimate purpose behind the rules: to protect sensitive information about ongoing investigations. However, she said lying about the records “is an overbroad and improper response.”

“The problem is, if you’re a FOIA requester and the agency says they don’t have the records, you have no reason to doubt that,” Weismann said. “But if they cite an exemption, you have the option to sue.”

Those groups have suggested an alternate federal response that would not require any revisions to the rules. “We interpret all or part of your request as a request for records which, if they exist, would not be subject to the disclosure requirements of FOIA pursuant to section 552(c), and we therefore will not process that portion of your request.”

Conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch has also lambasted the proposed rules change. (RELATED: Obama admin. pulls references to Islam from terror training materials, official says)

The news is “not surprising, coming from the Obama administration,” said Christopher J. Farrell, director of investigations and research at Judicial Watch.

“The Obama administration is already doing it right now by actively misleading the public concerning White House visitor logs,” Farrell said. “Every day, the Obama administration misrepresents and conceals the true, complete record of who is going in and out of the White House — all the while proclaiming themselves champions of transparency. It’s truly Orwellian. The proposed rule change should be rejected.”

However, the Justice Department says it has long had this standing authority. A 1987 memo from then-Attorney General Edwin Meese III advises the Justice Department that it has the legal authority to deny existence of records, using the same language as the new rule.

“Where an exclusion is employed, the agency is legally empowered to ‘treat’ the excluded records as not subject to the FOIA at all,” Meese wrote. “Accordingly, a requester can properly be advised in such a situation that “there exist no records responsive to your FOIA request.” Such phrasing — as opposed to any more detailed statement that, for example, any records specified in a particular request ‘could not be located’ — most rationally and fairly implements an exclusion’s effect.”

If the new rule were to go into effect, there is a good chance it might be challenged in court. Courts have traditionally given the Justice Department fairly broad powers regarding records disclosure, but recent precedent may give the DOJ trouble.

In a case involving the FBI and records disclosure, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney wrote that the “Government cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the Court.”

Under current FOIA practice, the government may withhold information and issue a denial saying it can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records. Such a denial is known as a “Glomar response” — named after the legal battle between the Los Angeles Times and the CIA in the 1970s over records concerning the CIA’s attempts to salvage a sunken Soviet submarine.

Upon taking office, President Obama released a memorandum declaring his administration was “committed to operating with an unprecedented level of openness. Specifically, he pledged to bolster the strength of the FOIA act, calling it “the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open government.”

[Yosemitest]

So now, the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT IN CHIEF wants it to be "legal" for the government to lie.
What's next?

[Diogenesis]

Tyrant’s AG:
”Your King and I might have deemed
that henceforth no laws or accountability shall exist.
Except, of course, for the Jew, Christians, and crackers."

[RowdyFFC]

Why not? Every other record on this criminal are hidden.

[Yosemitest]

That reminds me ...

... will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity,
to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the LORD,
to make empty the soul of the hungry,
and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.
The instruments also of the churl are evil:
he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right.
But the liberal deviseth liberal things;
and by liberal things shall he stand.

Didn't our Heavenly Father, through our Savior tell us...

" thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother."

How well we deserve this curse (~so shall the LORD bring upon you all evil things~) God has given us,
through the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT IN CHIEF, the FASCIST Obama.
Thomas Jefferson once said that,

"When the government fears the people, there is liberty.
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."

All things written in the Bible must come to pass,
and we WILL get to the day worse than has ever been.

And this too shall pass...

They hate him that rebuketh in the gate,
and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.
Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor,
and ye take from him burdens of wheat:
ye have built houses of hewn stone,
but ye shall not dwell in them;
ye have planted pleasant vineyards,
but ye shall not drink wine of them.
For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins:
they afflict the just,
they take a bribe,
and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

Can you remember reading about "a thorn in their side"?

"But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you;
then it shall come to pass,
that those which ye let remain of them
shall be pricks in your eyes,
and thorns in your sides,
and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.
Moreover
it shall come to pass,
that I shall do unto you,
as I thought to do unto them."

The command I await is...

"Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them".

Obama, and his Marxist minions, SHALL be gathered and bound.

[Eye of Unk]

They cannot keep his records hidden forever.

Possibly for a year or two, five years unlikely, and after that it will be a crusade to correct all the history books about Obama and his false and illegal occupation as POTUS, he will literally become the “13th Floor President”

Like a building that skips the 13th floor this is and will be Obamas final legacy.

[Yosemitest]

CORRECTION to link:

That reminds me ...

[CORedneck]

Transparency my @$$ ! It is turning into where, “the governed must get consent to do anything where as the gov’t is free to do whatever”, “the gov’t has a right to privacy where as subjects must be transparent”. This country is getting turned upside down from what the Founders has intended !

[Venturer]

I always heard the saying.”A license to steal”

Now we are talking about a “License to lie”.

Basically they are wanting to make perjury legal.

These people took an oath, an Obama oath is not worth the breath it took to speak it.Yet blacks and others who support this man ignore what they see in front of their eyes.How much respect should we have for people like Colon Powell and others who are guilty of protecting this man because he is black. How much respect should we have for a Congress which is becoming more and more a rubber stamp for this Muslim POS in the White House.

The answer of course is none.This is not America.Our politicians are selling us out.

[trebb]

I always heard the saying.”A license to steal” Now we are talking about a “License to lie”. Basically they are wanting to make perjury legal.

Makes perfect sense - everyone knows that Muslims are allowed to steal, lie, and do anything else they want if it advances their causes.....

[broken_arrow1]

Lying becomes official US Government Policy - unbelievable!

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Upon taking office, President Obama released a memorandum declaring his administration was “committed to operating with an unprecedented level of openness. Specifically, he pledged to bolster the strength of the FOIA act, calling it “the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open government.”

Now the subjects have to ask permission to do anything, while the rulers are accountable to no one.

[stephenjohnbanker]

YEP

[Siena Dreaming]

This got lots of press over at DU yesterday.

They were FURIOUS at Obama over it; they even said even Bush NEVER did this!

Obama is NOT real popular in DU-land these days.

[DJ MacWoW]

Not Supporting FR?

Click The Marxist To Donate

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."

~ Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006

[Robe]

Bookmark

[Immerito]

It’s fun to coupon-clip Scripture and “cash it in” out of context, isn’t it?

[Future Useless Eater]

>>So now, the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT IN CHIEF wants it to be "legal" for the government to lie. What's next?

This guy wants to gut the FOIA laws, hide EVERYTHING about his past, and all evidence of what goes on in 'his' white house. And no wonder, the man is basically DISHONEST to the core!

This LINK will start 138 seconds into the video where “Wild Bill” tells what the Secret Service agents claim that Obama is REALLY like...

  http://www.youtube.com/v/e5INFAuM1xI&start=138

...And today, we have the Obama’s.

The secret service agents who are with obama every day, describe him as the sneakiest president ever.

They watch him say one thing to people’s faces, and then do the exact opposite behind their backs.

Obama is modestly cooperative with the agents, but after observing his dishonesty day after day, they absolutely do not trust him.